


The Last Monday of May

by Mohini



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drug Use, M/M, Memorial Day, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve's Saviour Complex, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting, War Veteran Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 07:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14828280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: "Arms wide open, I stand alone,I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone."~Five Finger Death PunchWrong Side of Heaven





	The Last Monday of May

It’s not that there is anything inherently wrong with mentioning that the following class period will be cancelled per university holiday guidelines. It’s probably not even that much of a stretch to find it acceptable that the professor felt the need to point out that it’s a day to remember and celebrate the people who didn’t come back. The photo montage of combat images; that was a bit farther than Bucky really needed them to go. Said montage makes his blood run cold, and he’s pretty sure he hates the student government association for providing that particular stream of images in advertisement of some sort of thing to be held on campus on his least favorite Monday in May. But again, there’s no good reason said professor should know that there’s a combat vet in the back of the classroom who sees more than enough of that shit in the dark hours of the night. 

When he mentions it to Steve that afternoon, the other guy’s savior complex is front and center, ranting about insensitivity and what an asshole move that was. Bucky reminds him, for what is very likely the millionth time at this point in their lives, that he doesn’t have to save everyone from everything. Bucky writes a quick email to the professor anyway, suggesting that maybe the next time it comes up, he skip the graphic image reel, especially considering that the class in question was computer coding and maybe, just maybe, history; even painfully recent history; should be left to the guys in the liberal arts and humanities divisions. He feels pretty stupid when he hits send, but it makes Steve stop ranting, so there is always that. Now there’s just a long weekend full of “Happy Memorial Day” social media hell to navigate. Joy. 

At least he can be confident that their little off campus house will be free of boisterous cookouts and god forsaken fireworks. Three vets in one house means that things that go bang are not okay in several very big ways. Admittedly, Sam somehow made it out without being totally fucked up and Nat would probably only admit to having served under threat of who knows what, but there are still three of them. 

Sam announces Saturday morning that he’s going to his Ma’s for the weekend. What he really means is that he’s off to hole up in his childhood living room with his Ma fussing over him and avoiding the subject of Riley like the plague. But everyone wishes him a pleasant trip and various requests are made for leftovers, particularly if Mama Wilson makes pie. Mama Wilson always makes pie. 

Steve takes Bucky out to see Solo Monday evening. Bucky doesn’t point out the irony of taking him to see a movie full of blasters and explosions while they’re trying to avoid having to listen to the fireworks half the work seems to think are needed to honor people who most definitely would not have appreciated explosions. They invite Natasha to come with and she laughs, telling them she’s not up for being the third wheel. Something in her voice is off, but she’s also been drinking vodka scented La Croix since sometime around noon, so Bucky chalks it up to the alcohol starting to catch up to her. Nat doesn’t talk about where she served or what she did. The only reason any of them know she was HUMINT is that she made a comment about it once when Maria was teasing her for not being a languages major considering what a polyglot she was. 

Nat watches the door close behind the guys and scrolls idly though the offerings on their overpriced cable subscription. War movies, war movies, teenage crap, more fucking war movies, horror, nope, nothing worth watching there. She wanders into her room and slides open the bedside table drawer, withdrawing a metal box and dry swallowing a few of the offerings within. She hates this fucking holiday. She hates the stupid tributes on social media. She hates the godforsaken memories they never fail to dredge up. She especially hates that when she tried to suggest to Maria that they go somewhere her not exactly fuck buddy, not exactly girlfriend pointed out that she’s reliably zero fun when she’s sulky and took a pass. 

Another couple shots of vodka, minus the lemon seltzer this time, and the pills are starting to make themselves know, muting the memories just a little around the edges. She doesn’t understand why this happens. It’s not like the first Monday of May has any particular significance when it comes to her experiences. It’s not even like she saw anything when she was overseas that was particularly harrowing. She was a translator. Safely behind the walls of the base, translating documents and sitting in on interrogations. Sure, some of those skirted the edges of the Geneva Convention, but she reminds herself for the hundredth time today that absolutely none of it compares to Bucky, who watched his friends die in a dozen different ugly ways. Bucky who came home with an arm that’s more scar tissue than smooth flesh. Bucky who has a right to be fucked up, and who pushes through most of the time anyway. Nope, she doesn’t get to feel this, hasn’t earned it, and she stumbles back into her room for a few more pills because that seems like a decent idea right about now. 

The room is hazy not long after, the alcohol and pills doing their jobs but good, and it’s then that she decides that cleaning the pretty little Sig in her closet sounds like a logical thing to do. After all, it’s Memorial Day, right, and she sure as fuck remembers the thousand times she cleaned that thing in base housing. Solvent, steel, gunpowder residue, they’re soothing scents, proof that she can and has made it to the end of the day. Cleaning mat laid out on the bed, supplies lined up, and the little ramrod with the bit of cloth, sliding in and out of the barrel, swish, swish, swish. 

Her mind wanders as her hands go through familiar motions. It wouldn’t be that hard. To slip the clip into the weapon, to rack that slide and send a round into the chamber. She imagines the gentle, steady pressure on the trigger, the chill of the barrel against clammy flesh. Maybe that would solve this. She doesn’t deserve to feel this way. She didn’t live through the hell Bucky did. Not at war anyway, the traitorous part of her brain that flashes back to a childhood spent with an endless series of temporary parents reminds her. She thinks about Sam, going home to his mom and her comforts. She thinks of Steve holding Bucky when he’s had too much, when he can’t sleep, when the world at large is too damn big and she wonders, why can’t she have that. She can’t. She knows that. It’s not her right. She thinks of Bucky, and she remembers that even if she wants to, she can’t send lead and fire into her brain, because it would be Bucky and Steve to find her tonight. Bucky, who hurts enough already. 

Her hands find the screen of her phone, slipping a bit with the gun oil on her fingerprints, and the text is off and away before her brain catches up to what she’s doing. She wipes the oil from the screen, reassembles the weapon and puts it in the case, locking it up and putting it away again, the thoughts still scrolling through her head but they’re just half formed questions without any true intent behind them. She just wants to be gone for a little while. Not for always, probably, maybe not. She’s really, really high now, and she can’t remember anymore what she took, or how much, but it doesn’t matter much. She’s fuzzy and sleepy and she curls up on top of the covers, tears leaking from her eyes into her pillow as she drifts. 

“What the fuck?” Bucky mutters, handing his phone to Steve. 

_lvyou. Dnfrgt at lvyu. Srry. Sd. Mky. Jssad._

__“How much do you think she’s had to drink?” Steve asks, staring at the garbled drunk text from Nat. They’re finished with the movie and have retreated to a quiet little coffee dive not far from campus._ _

__“I’m going with too much. Look, I know she’s probably okay, but that’s not like her, you know? D’you mind if we head back and check on her?”_ _

__Steve’s already got his keys out of his pocket, and they find the car and make the short drive home. The lights in the common areas are all out, and there’s no Nat in the kitchen or living space. There is, however, a distinct scent of gun oil. Steve doesn’t recognize it right away, but Bucky does, and it terrifies him. Nat’s drunk and has definitely been handling her gun. Couple that with the bizarre text and he’s braced for the worst when he edges the door open to her bedroom. He half expects cordite and iron in the air and is immeasurably grateful to find neither. Nat’s asleep, curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed. Whatever happened here tonight, she’s safe, at least bodily._ _

__“Nat?” he calls out, moving closer until he can perch on the edge of the mattress and reach out for her hand. He squeezes it, and finds it to be icy cold. Trembling fingers press to the radial pulse, and it’s there, slow, thready, but there._ _

__“Natasha, sweetheart, wake up for me?” he asks, shaking her somewhere between not exactly gently and really hard._ _

__Eyelids flutter and glassy eyes search his face with minimal recognition. “Lemme sleep,” she slurs._ _

__That does it. Drunk texts are fine and good. Everyone does it once in a while. But in all the time he’s known her, and he’s known her through some very long nights with very big bottles of booze, he’s never heard Natasha slur her words._ _

__“Nope. Not happening. How much did you drink, Nat?”_ _

__“Not nuff,” she murmurs. “Still here.”_ _

__“Buck, do I need to call a squad?” Steve asks behind him. The irony of this is not lost on Bucky. It’s usually him on the subject end of the panicky discussion deciding whether or not professional intervention is needed. It’s been a while, more than six months now, but the memory remains fresh._ _

__“Give me a few, and then maybe,” Bucky replies, hoisting Nat into his arms and walking with her to the bathroom._ _

__“Natasha, sweetheart, we need to sober you up some,” Bucky tells her as he lowers them both to the floor in front of the toilet.  
“M’not tha drunk,” she mutters. _ _

__“What are you, then?”_ _

__“Lil high,” she whines, burying her face in his shoulder. He barely registers that it’s the shoulder that he usually won’t allow anyone but Steve near._ _

__“What did you take?”_ _

__“Xanax n oxy,” she tells him, and the words are out before her fuzzy brain can stop her._ _

__“Dammit, Nat,” he curses. There’s a hand on his other shoulder and he looks up to find Steve._ _

__“Hold her steady and I’ll help her clear it out of her stomach,” Steve tells him. Bucky knows they’ve done this for him before. Steve’s arms around him and Nat’s long, thin fingers down his throat. The turnabout is less than pleasant._ _

__“Nat, baby, do you hear him? We need to get some of this out of your system,” Bucky tells her, cradling her forehead in one hand and supporting her body with his own. She’s too wasted to sit up without the assistance._ _

__“I cn do it,” she mutters, a trembling hand moving to her open mouth. It takes only seconds before she’s retching, and she can feel the half dissolved pills clawing their way back up her throat. The vodka burns, and everything hurts. She withdraws her fingers, coughing, tears leaking from her eyes._ _

__“You got any more in you?” Bucky asks. She wants to tell him no, that she’s good now. She’s so tired, and she’s scared that she’s going to scratch her throat with the long nails she keeps to prevent herself from doing this. She doesn’t realize she’s spoken that last bit aloud until Steve is knelt beside them._ _

__“Let me help you?” he asks her. She nods. Despite what was careening through her out of control brain a few hours ago, here in Bucky’s lap, with Steve’s worried face so close, she’s pretty sure she doesn’t actually want to die._ _

__His hand is larger than she expected, but he’s as gentle as he can be, considering the task. More pills crawl up her throat, more vodka burns its way out, and she’s sobbing now, her diaphragm aching fiercely and her back burning from the effort of curling up so hard. A cup of water is held to her lips. She swallows it clumsily, half of it dripping down her chin before she’s startled by a wet burp and another wave of fiery, chalky stomach contents. She dry heaves a few times after that, and then Bucky’s wiping her face with a cloth, easing her away from the rim of the toilet and telling her to breathe and settle down._ _

__She’s still shaking when she’s carried back into the bedroom. Steve’s hand move softly over her as he strips off her filthy shirt and replaces it with something soft and loose. She shimmies out of her jeans on command, and accepts the offered sleep pants without argument._ _

__“You don’t have to talk about it tonight, but we’re going to have to figure out what happened in the morning, Nat,” Bucky tells her._ _

__“Stay with me?” she asks him. She doesn’t want to be alone. Alone is bad. Alone is pills and booze and gun solvent and metal and scared._ _

__“Shhh, Nat, baby, you’re thinking out loud again,” Bucky tells her._ _

__She bites her lip so hard she tastes blood._ _

__“Hey, hey, no, you can talk if you need to,” he tells her. “We’re not going anywhere. I don’t want you to sleep yet, okay? Not until I know you’re a little more sober. Think you can walk or do you want me to carry you to the couch?”_ _

__“I can walk,” she murmurs, and she can, as long as he keeps an arm around her that holds most of her weight._ _

__They settle onto the couch and Steve takes charge of the remote. He doesn’t have to be told what to avoid, he’s more than used to Bucky’s non-preferred options on Bad days, and a few minutes later, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is cued up and she’s nestled between the guys safe and sound, mindless fantasy violence on the screen, and her hands held in two bigger ones. Her eyes drift shut just before the party guests start trying to consume their hosts, and Steve pulls the throw from the back of the couch to cover her up as she sleeps between them, her mind finally quiet for the first time in weeks._ _


End file.
